---
title: "Well-being research: papers, trends and top journals"
description: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “well-being” appeared in 1,095 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (407), health economics and policy (260) and management (148)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/well-being
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/well-being.md
license: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
share_text: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “well-being” appeared in 1,095 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (407), health economics and policy (260) and management (148). (as of 2026-11-05)"
data_url: https://scholar4ai.com/data/rankings.json
updated: 2026-11-05T06:02:37+09:00
window: 2026-10-07 to 2026-11-05
source: OpenAlex (CC0)
---

# Papers on “well-being”

[Browse research topics](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/directory/page/7.md)

Research on “well-being” in the 480 tracked journals: papers per year and category, the journals, institutions and countries publishing it, the keywords studied with it and its most-cited papers. It is not among the most frequent keywords of the last 30 days, so this page has no list of its latest papers.

Back to the ranking: https://scholar4ai.com/rankings/keywords.md

## Key findings

- From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “well-being” appeared in 1,095 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (407), health economics and policy (260) and management (148).
- 120 of them were published in 2025, against 74 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were Harvard University (9), Hong Kong Polytechnic University (9) and The University of Melbourne (8).
- The journals publishing most of them were Journal of Happiness Studies (96), Social Science & Medicine (59) and Computers in Human Behavior (18).
- The most-cited of them is “The public value of E-Government – A literature review” (Government Information Quarterly, 2019), with 965 citations.

## Papers per year

*Papers per publication year and category*

| Category | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 (so far) |
|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|
| [Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/economics.md) | 33 | 30 | 51 | 42 | 36 | 39 | 41 | 55 | 41 | 39 |
| [Health Economics and Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/health-economics-and-policy.md) | 13 | 35 | 17 | 30 | 28 | 29 | 22 | 30 | 27 | 29 |
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 10 | 10 | 9 | 11 | 16 | 15 | 17 | 24 | 18 | 18 |
| [Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/information-systems.md) | 6 | 9 | 12 | 12 | 9 | 14 | 10 | 8 | 9 | 7 |
| [Tourism and Hospitality](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/tourism-and-hospitality.md) | 6 | 5 | 3 | 11 | 8 | 9 | 8 | 9 | 11 | 14 |
| [Higher Education and Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/higher-education-and-research.md) | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 2 |
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 1 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 3 |
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 1 | 4 | 3 |
| [Statistics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/statistics.md) | 3 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| [Marketing](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/marketing.md) | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 3 |
| [Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/finance.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 2 |
| [Accounting](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/accounting.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| All categories | 74 | 96 | 97 | 115 | 102 | 115 | 115 | 137 | 120 | 124 |

## Where the papers come from

*Journals with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Journal | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Journal of Happiness Studies](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-happiness-studies.md) | 96 |
| 2 | [Social Science & Medicine](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/social-science-medicine.md) | 59 |
| 3 | [Computers in Human Behavior](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/computers-in-human-behavior.md) | 18 |
| 4 | [Health and Quality of Life Outcomes](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/health-and-quality-of-life-outcomes.md) | 13 |
| 5 | [AI & Society](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ai-society.md) | 11 |
| 6 | [Journal of Vocational Behavior](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-vocational-behavior.md) | 9 |
| 7 | [Quality & Quantity](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/quality-quantity.md) | 9 |
| 8 | [Ecological Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ecological-economics.md) | 8 |
| 9 | [Technological Forecasting and Social Change](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/technological-forecasting-and-social-change.md) | 7 |
| 10 | [Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-hospitality-and-tourism-management.md) | 7 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Harvard University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/harvard-university.md) | 9 |
| 2 | [Hong Kong Polytechnic University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/hong-kong-polytechnic-university.md) | 9 |
| 3 | [The University of Melbourne](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/the-university-of-melbourne.md) | 8 |
| 4 | [Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/centre-national-de-la-recherche-scientifique.md) | 7 |
| 5 | [McMaster University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/mcmaster-university.md) | 7 |
| 6 | [University College London](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-college-london.md) | 7 |
| 7 | [University of Michigan](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-of-michigan.md) | 7 |
| 8 | [University of Toronto](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-of-toronto.md) | 7 |
| 9 | [Erasmus University Rotterdam](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/erasmus-university-rotterdam.md) | 6 |
| 10 | [Renmin University of China](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/renmin-university-of-china.md) | 6 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | United States | 118 |
| 2 | United Kingdom | 77 |
| 3 | China | 63 |
| 4 | Germany | 39 |
| 5 | Canada | 37 |
| 6 | Netherlands | 37 |
| 7 | Spain | 31 |
| 8 | Italy | 31 |
| 9 | Australia | 29 |
| 10 | Hong Kong | 24 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | life satisfaction | 58 |
| 2 | [mental health](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/mental-health.md) | 51 |
| 3 | [COVID-19 pandemic](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/covid-19-pandemic.md) | 46 |
| 4 | [gender differences](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/gender-differences.md) | 32 |
| 5 | [older adults](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/older-adults.md) | 32 |
| 6 | happiness | 27 |
| 7 | resilience | 24 |
| 8 | [depression](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/depression.md) | 21 |
| 9 | loneliness | 21 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 965 | 10.4 | [The public value of E-Government – A literature review](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2019.01.001) | [Government Information Quarterly](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/government-information-quarterly.md) | 2019-02-14 | Jean Damascene Twizeyimana, Annika Andersson |
| 2 | 681 | 7.3 | [Entrepreneurship and well-being: Past, present, and future](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusvent.2019.01.002) | [Journal of Business Venturing](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-business-venturing.md) | 2019-01-22 | Johan Wiklund, Boris Nikolaev, Nadav Shir et al. |
| 3 | 637 | 9.0 | [COVID-19, lockdowns and well-being: Evidence from Google Trends](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2020.104346) | [Journal of Public Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-public-economics.md) | 2020-11-30 | Abel Brodeur, Andrew Eric Clark, Sarah Flèche et al. |
| 4 | 597 | 5.3 | [Tourism and wellbeing](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2017.05.006) | [Annals of Tourism Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/annals-of-tourism-research.md) | 2017-06-08 | Melanie Smith, Anya Diekmann |
| 5 | 559 | 7.5 | [Paradoxes of artificial intelligence in consumer markets: Ethical challenges and opportunities](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.08.024) | [Journal of Business Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-business-research.md) | 2020-08-28 | Shuili Du, Chunyan Xie |

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Papers on “well-being”. Journal and Conference Research Rankings. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/well-being

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-keywords-well-being,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Papers on “well-being”},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/well-being}},
  urldate = {2026-11-05},
  note = {Journal and Conference Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}
```

License: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).